Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

Parents Forum
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@JustOneDad every kid’s situation is different some are ready to move to a university so they can be around people of their own intellectual level, others my be seeking research opportunities that are only open to college students.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek count us in as homeschooler that choose to enroll their kids for high school. We have an on out of district public school that’s one of the top public schools in TX and offers amazing special programs and opportunities. If this high school was not an option we would homeschool through high school.

I have to say that my kids were better prepared for high school than I thought they’d be. Academically they start in advanced classes and always make A’s. Socially they’ve had no problem finding their friend groups. Many of their new friends thought it was “cool” that they had been homeschooled. Our biggest problems with transitioning to public school has been living a split life by having some in public school while other are still homeschooled. The public school has a very ridged schedule that is hard to get used to after the freedom of homeschooling! The other was having the public school attempt to usurp my parental authority on what is best for my kids outside of school. I’m not happy that the school has to sign off on them taking after school CC courses that don’t even go on their high school transcript or when the told me my 10th grader was not ALLOWED to take the PSAT this year and if I took him out of school to take the PSAT it would be an unexcused absence. I think I’ve had a harder time adjusting to public school than my kids have!

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@JustOneDad, most families make the best educational decision they can at the time, given the information they have at the time. For those that do early college and it doesn’t pan out, well, hindsight is 20/20, right? And even then, was it the early college or something else? We can’t always know. And life isn’t just one setback; that’s just part of the learning experience anyways.

Believe me when I say that most/all of the early college kids I know are driven internally, and there is no stopping them! My son, though he amassed a large number of college credits during high school, did not go away early to college. This was a philosophical and spiritual decision. He had begun to apply to local colleges three years early, but we decided that wasn’t right for him. Since we loved having him around, and we knew he would be going away for college (he didn’t apply to any local schools), we didn’t want him going away before age 18, and he didn’t want that, either. Since we live in a large city, and he was into many non-academic endeavors, it was easy for him to stay engaged. I wouldn’t say he was academically challenged even while taking upper division physics classes at the local Cal State school (he got the highest grade in class), but it was enough for him.

Other kids would not have been academically satisfied and would insist on beginning university early. My kid is more laid back, but I fully support those homeschoolers (and public/private schoolers, btw; I’ve known plenty of accelerated kids who didn’t homeschool) going to college early. Not my place to judge at all; each family is unique.

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My question was “what’s the rush”? The kids that go early are by no means the only ones who are “ready”. And, if you look at the research, it turns out that maybe half of those that do are mistaken to begin with.

A student might be prepared, academically, to move up, but there are many more aspects of growth and maturation that ignores.

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Could you share this research, @JustOneDad ? I’m curious. And I answered “what’s the rush?” The students themselves want the challenge. Yes, others are ready, but like my son, they choose not to go early. My son has had plenty of ups and downs in college, same as his friends who started early.

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I’d start by Googling “gifted students” and go from there. Take care to use the academic publications and not the popular schlock.

There are many other ways to get an academic challenge, including, but not limited to limited enrollment at local colleges, online, summer work and others.

And, that ignores the other parts that might go into a holistic person.

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I’m guessing that some of the kids that go to school at 18, after spending 4 years at high school aren’t “ready” for residential college and drop out too. What’s your point? My kids have been taking college classes for several years but they will not move away to residential colleges ‘early’ because it’s not what’s best for my kids in our situation. I started residential college at 16 and ended up in a jr/sr dorm because I came in mid year. I needed a place to live until I was 18. Not the best reason for going to residential college early but for my personal circumstances, it was what I needed to do.

As @sbjdorlo points out it’s an individual decision for each family I don’t think there is a general trend to “rush” homeschoolers into residential colleges.

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My son will be 19 (summer baby) when he heads to college officially (though he’s been dual enrolled this year and last).

The homeschooling families I have known tend to have kids who are a little bit “old” for their class (though the range is not huge). Sometimes it might have been for a perceived athletic advantage (which I do not necessarily agree with). Granted, we mostly know “boy” homeschooling families.

Some of us have kids with learning differences which might have been incorrectly attributed to immaturity in kinder or pre-K.

I do know one family who is not technically a homeschool family; their child went to our university high school. Graduated from high school one May, and college the next May (bachelor’s degree). This is an unusual situation for the families I have known, though.

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It’s the same question I keep asking; “What’s the rush?”

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It looks like this case was student-driven, not (tiger-)parent-pushed, though the parents certainly accommodated the student’s drive.

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Well, the question of, “What’s the rush?” keeps getting answered, but I don’t think JustOneDad will ever be satisfied with the answer.

@SouthFloridaMom9 , my middle son, homeschooled with “special needs” (diabetes, vision disabilty, math disability and a hearing loss), is taking a much needed gap year before heading off across the country to an Ivy. He needed the time, for sure.

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I want to point out it’s not always just the parents behind it. As we know, teenagers are feeling the need for independence, and for some, having “good grades” represents just another way in which to change their situation.

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I agree totally with @justonedad. We would always say what is the rush My kid started college at 18 even though they passed calculus bc at 12 and both physic C classes in 8th grade. If someone wants to pm me I gave them specific examples of extremely bright kids who were in the news and who waited till they graduated from high school to go to college. I think @sbjdorlo also makes some really good points

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I thought that some of the posters here might be interested in a new wrinkle on homeschooling - roadschooling! My brother and his wife sole everything a few months ago - houses, cars, furniture - and bought a used RV. Since then, they’ve been traveling with their children (ages 5 and 6), staying for a time in one place, then moving to the next. I think that they’re doing a wonderful thing for their kids and themselves. They post pictures and videos on a private facebook group almost every day. The kids are having incredible experiences and the family is spending almost all their time together. (And I know my SIL well enough to know that the education aspect is not being neglected.) Part of the reason for doing this is that they were disenchanted with their “top” school system, after having bought a house in an expensive area for the schools. Another factor was my brother’s job, which was stressful and involved extensive travel and time away from his family. Their expenses are now much lower and they earn enough money from their online business to support their current lifestyle. Apparently there are quite a few families doing this, thus the new term.

I admire and envy those of you who homeschool. I believe that it would have been great for my kids, much better than either the public or the private schools they attended. One of them would have benefited from homeschooling through HS, the other would have been better off going to the public HS that he will graduate from this year. There were two reasons that I didn’t do it when it was suggested to me years ago. One was that I didn’t feel competent to be my child’s teacher. There weren’t as many online resources then. The other, and the major reason, was that I have a dream career which is central to me, that required a great deal of education (Ph.D.) I could not and cannot imagine giving that up. I feel very guilty about this. In most things, I have always put my children first. In this, I didn’t. I wish I’d found a way to somehow do both.

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I’m sorry, but I don’t find much substance in answers like “It’s a personal decision” or “Families are different”.

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@NYMomof2 - I used to belong to a FB roadschooling group, though we never went that route. It sounded cool to me though! :slight_smile: We wanted to do “homeschooling at sea” - just ran out of time. We spent many years toggling between team sports with older son, theater, and karate (younger is a black belt). Your brother and his wife are smart to try it when their kids are still young.

Don’t live with regret. I have a law degree and have been homeschooling for the most part for the last 9 years. It’s hard to jump back in now, but I’m going to try. We all do the best we can do in the moment. There’s never any perfect answer; that’s something I’ve realized over the years.

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Yes, SouthFloridaMom9, My brother and SIL are not intending to do this forever. At some point, the kids will need to be in one place for activities like the ones you mention. But at this point, it’s great.

Thank you for the kind works, and best of luck resuming your career!

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This is news because, as already stated, it is rare.

The highly/extremely gifted are as different from the mainstream as the same degree of retardedness are. The midrange gifted likewise are different. Enough literature was finally available to parents and teachers when my son was in his teens. Could have optimized his education more but partly didn’t because his wheel wasn’t squeaky enough to be heard. Wish we had the info decades sooner.

So- first figure out where a kid fits in intellectually. This one is high end gifted, his needs are different than 99% of kids. Read up on social needs of the gifted. Figure out how he would/wouldn’t fit in with agemates. Notice he became an oncampus student only at age 15. Definitely old enough.

Homeschooling. Just erased my rant against it. Religion is a horrible reason (parents must be afraid their beliefs won’t hold up to questioning). Many states need to improve their public schooling to rise to the level of the better states. The highly gifteds’ needs can’t be met with other kids in any school system- there simply are not enough students to give them a peer group.

Putting this kid in a school would be the same as having your college bound kids being forced to always be in a class with moderately to severely retarded kids.

You don’t push a gifted kid like this. His parents wisely did not hold him back. It is the nearly gifted who often suffer from parental pushing, and those who try to force their child to a higher level than is natural for them. It sounds like this kid had social and emotional needs met because he seems able to function well in his environment. He is now facing the same issues all teens do- finding his focus- realizing that no one can do it all.

Did anyone read the article’s comments? You can tell some are from gifted people who do not know what average is. When one’s relatives and associates are all well above average one gets a skewed view of the world. One says all kids are born gifted but the parenting makes the difference. Not so. There are real differences in intellectual capacity of humans. Parental efforts influence outcomes for the good or harm but only within the child’s abilities.

Define success. So many different kinds and views of what it is. One size does not fit all.

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We did a 10 week road trip with the kids the spring before my oldest started high school. The five of us in a mini van camping and visiting friends and relatives. We left Texas Easter Sunday headed to Florida then all the way up the East cost to Nova Scotia, across Canada to Toronto and then down over to Chicago and the mid west back to Texas. I loved camping outside DC, it was mid week off season and the only folks camping near us were home schoolers from NYC also loved sleeping at the light house on the Bay Fundy. It was the best experience ever! I arranged music lessons for d along the way with some awesome musicians including one who plays my daughter’s instrument at the White House:-) S took the opportunity to explore his interest in glass blowing at different studios, we loved the Corning Museum of Glass! We explored so much art and history and nature. Because we were able to do this just off season it was so much cheaper and less crowded!

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But my point is, there are so many reasons why students go to college early, and this certainly isn’t relegated to homeschooling. Yes, kids like my son and tiger1307’s child that did calculus at age 12, chose not to go to college full time early…but that doesn’t mean our decision is right for everyone.

My own father graduated high school at age 15. It was the best thing he could have ever done, and likely, it would have been better if he had graduated even earlier. There not only wasn’t anything that the high school could offer, but he got beat up for being smart and “different”.

You are presuming that there are always options to keep students engaged so they don’t go to college early, and that simply isn’t the case. There are many gifted kids who don’t have the options we had, and even with the options we had, my son wasn’t particularly academically challenged…but it was ok for him. For other kids, more academically focused with a less non-academic focus (and nothing wrong with being more singularly minded; my dad certainly was, and he had a very successful career and life), they might need early college; thus, “the rush”.

As for the arguement, “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t” in regards to early college, well, isn’t that just how life works (or doesn’t work) in general?

Here are a few more examples:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/college_success.htm

One of my favorite early college success stories:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Rush

Having said all that I have said, I will definitely acknowledge that early college was not right for our son, nor did I want him leaving early. I think, “Why the rush?” is a legitimate question, but you have to really be open to hearing the varied answers.

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@JustOneDad - Why early college? It is simply one educational alternative just like radical acceleration, special education, dual enrollment, or homeschooling. When deciding on how to educate a child, you look at the child’s needs and make decisions that work best for that individual child.

The American school system is set up for students who are gifted and highly gifted. It is not set up for students who are profoundly gifted. There are not enough local students to fill a classroom. Students on the very high end of the intelligence spectrum often have social and academic issues. There is a lack of classes. There are no peers that share that students interests. Often students end up feeling isolated and alone. One way to deal with this specific type of student is early college. Over the past 30 year a variety of early college options have come about as a response to the needs of the profoundly gifted. They often have emotional support that a chronologically younger student needs, with the academics that a college level student needs. This is the benefit of the two programs I mentioned (Los Angeles and Washington). They are set up for very young students so they can be supported while in an environment that is designed for adults. They are commuter programs for students still living at home. Several programs offer an option for students who would be juniors or seniors such as the one in Texas and USC. Both these programs are residential. Some kids are just ready early.

This is not for everyone. While this worked very well for my sister, the counselor suggested this for my son his freshman year, and he shot it down right away. He had no interest in early college. This was fine and the school was able to serve him well. Like I said, it is one option among many. For some, dual enrollment will meet the needs of an advanced child, or an online option, but early college also works for others.

@justonedad.I do think it is suspect when you quote research while refusing to actually show that research. You mention studies, and when another poster asked you to produce that research, you told them to Google it. That really doesn’t cut it.